


revive the river of our dreams

by viridianArtiste



Category: Homestuck
Genre: vague feelings about reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 17:14:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18451031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viridianArtiste/pseuds/viridianArtiste
Summary: in this lifetime, you meet rose lalonde in a shitty convenience store in a shittier gas station at 3am.





	revive the river of our dreams

the bright fluorescent of the 7-11 is almost criminal against the city's sleepy lights. almost, because you've never met a city that sleeps.

there's a bell set over the door that jingles offensively when you enter, and you file it away as a feature unique to this shop. chain convenience stores are built with such painstakingly uniform rigidity that it almost becomes a game to spot the differences.

_— like branching timelines —_

this particular 7-11 reveals itself to contain another unique feature, and it's sitting at one of the tables.

it's a woman (but you think of her as girl, always, because the memory of all four of you feels the most invincible at thirteen). she's wearing a skirt hemmed long enough to brush the soda-sticky floor, colored like the ink-dark, star-dead sky outside, and lipstick to match. 

there's a split-second fracture in the steady flow of your mind and —

you're pretty sure you don't know anyone that would be dicking around in an elegant gown in a decidedly inelegant convenience store in the middle of the graveyard shift —

_wait, no —_

you know that her name is rose lalonde, and you've missed her so much.

she looks at you head-on. her hair is the warm gold of sand on a beach, and her skin is muted copper. it doesn't come as a surprise, somehow, because it's what you see every time you look in a mirror.

(anytime you want to see what rose would look like in any lifetime, all you have to do is look in the mirror and pretend you have a hard-on for Cthulu. there's just one detail that sets your twin color palettes apart — the eyes. her eyes are always

strikingly,

uncompromisingly,

_violet._ )

and then she says,

Hello, Dave.

it comes through the slant of her black-painted mouth, an expression that could be generously described as a smile.

she always was too in love with the idea of being a mystery.

probably meant it to unsettle you, stir a little merry-go-round of who the fuck are you and how the fuck do you know my name, but you can see through it in the doll-like stillness of her hands. on any other person, they would be shaking. rose lalonde wants to overcome her own humanity, and so trains herself into perfection.

it's a deflecting tactic, clear as rain. she's afraid.

she always remembers the most.

(sometimes it takes you years or not at all, and isn't that just the worst, like the time you caught jade's skinny-strong wrist in a museum in arizona and she looked at you _like a stranger_.)

you drop into the seat in front of her. she has the grace to not look relieved.

What do you remember?

enough to know that you totally enjoyed stabbing me in the throat even though you said it was strictly mafia business, goddamn lalonde

the smile on her face curls up on itself in a way that can only be described as _lonely_.

That was two lifetimes ago.

 

**Author's Note:**

> so this is a lot shorter than i intended but i mainly wrote this because i wanted to use some of the descriptions hahaha. maybe i'll do more for this in the future but for now happy 10th anniversary homestuck <3


End file.
